Just A Dream
by BloodLustPassion
Summary: A collection of one shots about each character's thoughts and regrets during their last appearance in the show.
1. I'm ascending

**Disclaimer: **The show, world, and characters featured in this story do not belong to me but to Sunrise Inc. The events of this particular story are of my own imagination and merely for entertainment for fellow fans. I do not profess them to be part of the canon.

Chapter I: "Im ascending..."

Spike stood there looking down at the fading soul of his former brother-in-arms. Those eyes never leaving his own mismatched ones as he struggled to breathe, blood pooling at the corner of his mouth. Vicious' hand was still firmly clinging to his katana—his only reliable life-line—ready to strike. He was never one to give up the fight. Spike could not identify the emotion that was invading his already dwindling senses. It started in his toes then moved to his fingers, making them twitch. He tried to shake it off, tried forming an iron fist with the hand not holding the gun that shot his ex-comrade down, but he found his fingers too weak to make it convincing.

"How does it feel?" asked Vicious in that gravely, dangerous tone that came as naturally as breathing—as killing. It was a voice that brought the cold chill of death breathing down the neck of all who were unlucky enough to hear it. You could never forget it. But to Spike it served only as a reminder of his life in the Syndicate; of the endless battle for survival; the pain of losing another friend to cold, hard metal; and of the longing for something more, something that could only exist in a fairy tale… in a dream.

"To finally kill you, you mean?" A dark and chill chuckle was the response Spike received.

"How does it feel… to be awake?" Vicious asked. Spike wasn't sure if the pain that shot through his body originated from the gaping wound to his gut provided by the still, yet perpetually lethal katana, or his heart. He wasn't sure how long he stood there, gazing into those frozen pools that saw only the present, saw only the task at hand. At one time, Spike would have looked into those eyes and saw his own reflecting back in them, that gleam that always expected the next fight and faced it without fear. But now, he felt only sadness, regret, and maybe even pity. Now, he was reminded only of a pair of eyes that would never again see the rising sun, the birds soaring into the vast unknown; eyes that were constantly looking towards the future and the endless possibilities it provided, refusing to look back at the past, and fighting to resist the present. These were eyes that existed in place far beyond the grasp and disappointments of reality. That was what he loved about her… about Julia. To most it was an ordinary name, one that could be matched with any pretty face passed on the street; ominous, Jet had called it. But to Spike it held all the unfulfilled promises of a life that almost was.

"Freedom," Spike said, picturing flowing gold hair the color of the sun as it reflects off a dove's wings, "It feels like freedom."

Vicious' lips thinned as his eyes, dark as a moonless night, hardened. "There's no such thing as freedom… not in this life, or the next." Spike couldn't help the small grin that pulled at the corner of his lips. Those words… he had said the same thing once in another life, in a bed whilst lying in the arms of a woman who stood between the oath he swore and the life he never thought he would desire with all of his being.

"Maybe… maybe not," Spike said as he loosened the grip on his gun, "Maybe you just need the courage to hope for it… to dream about it."

A watery chuckle escaped Vicious' mouth that was followed by coughing as the blood, which had undoubtedly flooded his lungs, tried to find an exit. "You sound… just like her. Always looking for an escape." His grip on the katana tightened, like a snake coiling, preparing to strike. "Hopes… dreams. Weakness, that's all they are."

"And that's why you're the one laying on the ground, soaking in a puddle of your own blood."

"And what future do you think awaits _you_?" Vicious snarled, hand still ready to strike. Spike felt a sudden pain course through his abdomen as a thick stream of blood seeped through his clothing. His arm flew to his stomach, clinging to his wound while gritting his teeth. He might be a knuckle head, but Spike was no idiot. He knew how deep the gash went and what it meant. "People like you and me… there's nothing for us, no place where we belong. What we need, what we want… we have to _take _it, or die trying. There is nothing else."

"And what were you reaching for, Vicious?" Spike questioned. He gazed into those dark pools; at the face of the man he would have taken a bullet for once upon a time. "All of those people that died… Lin, Shin, Annie… Julia. In the end not even she meant anything to you."

A smile crept onto Vicious' face then; one that was colder that the most bitter winter storm, more jagged than rocks waiting for you as you plummet to the sea surface, more sinister than the demons that haunt you even in your waking state. "What do you feel, Vicious?" The words escaped Spike's mouth before he had a chance to stop them.

"… Nothing. I feel nothing."

That was when Spike heard it—the sharp intake of breath and then the slow release of air as it exited Vicious' lungs for the last time. His eyes were open, always open, never losing their razor sharp edge. Even in death his aura suffocated the room, driving away all signs of life.

Spike released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding; his muscles relaxed, the tension fading from his body. He felt his grip on the gun slacken until it eventually slipped between his blood soaked fingers and landed on the ground with a hard, metallic thud.

"Julia." Spike felt his heart drop as he realized how empty her name sounded now; like a phantom it echoed throughout the demolished room, escaping through the remains of the broken glass ceiling and into the wind. He looked up at the dark, early morning sky; though the moon was still visible, rays of golden sun were beginning to form, bringing with them the fresh, crisp morning air and all its promises of a new day.

"It's finally over." Spike suddenly felt tired; he felt it settle in his bones, his chest, his heart. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so drained, couldn't remember a time when he didn't have any fight left in him. Spike felt hollow, like he could float away with the breeze at any moment—a kite without a string or tail, like Annie had said.

"When the hell did I get so old?" he mused to himself, "Faye is older than me but that's never stopped her from being a pain in the ass." The thought of Faye brought another wave of pain crashing over him, one that yanked and scratched as his heartstrings. His throat began to burn, making it near impossible to swallow the lump that had suddenly formed there.

A weak smile tugged at the corner of Spike's lips. "What the hell am I doing," Spike thought, "getting sentimental over a woman with more drama and attitude in her left pinky than the population of Mars put together? Not to mention the free-loading, nagging, showmanship, and natural ability to make the simplest of tasks complicated."

"_Where are you going_," _she had asked with a gun pointed to his head,_ "_why are you going?" _

He had never seen her like that before: scared. It wasn't in her eyes, no, she would never allow herself to be that transparent. It was in her voice. She tried to hide it, tried to sound angry, but Spike had heard her angry before—this was different.

"_My memory finally came back, but… nothing good came of it." Her breathing started coming in quick, harsh-sounding bursts. He could hear Faye try to fight it off, knowing how much she hated appearing vulnerable. "There was no place for me to return to. _This _was the only place I could go… And now you're leaving, just like that!" _

That was it… her breaking point. Spike would never forget the echo that filled the familiar corridors of the Bebop, reverberating through the spaceship-turned-home that their little makeshift family had inhabited.

"_Why do you have to go? … Where are you going?" Her voice had gone quiet then, going full circle and asking those same questions again that had been circling through his own head. "What are you going to do? Just throw your life away like it was nothing?!"_

That was when Spike knew the answer to her questions and to his own. What was more shocking was Spike realized he had known the answer all along.

"_I'm not going there to die… I'm going to find out if I'm really alive." _

That was the last thing Spike said to her as he walked down the hallway, away from the life that had magically formed around him without his notice, a parade of bullets ricocheting off the ceiling as Faye fired her gun above her head. He could still hear her muffled sobs ghosting behind him.

Spike's trembling hand reached into the pocket of his overcoat, drawing out the cigarette he had been saving. As he raised it to his mouth, placing it between his dry, cracked lips, Spike couldn't help but chuckle at its bent form. "Guess I'm not the only one that got banged up." He patted down his jacket and pants, looking for a lighter but having no luck. "Damn…" Spike muttered as he released a sigh. "I must've left it with Jet back on the ship."

Spike found himself smiling again as he pictured the balding, mechanical-armed man sitting in his room bickering to himself about ship repairs while trimming his bonsai trees. Jet was his partner, his comrade… his friend? That's right… they had been friends, all of them. Jet, Faye, Ed, even that dumb dog, Ein. At least, they _had_ been. Ed had taken off, with Ein following in step right behind her. She was searching for something, just like the rest of them: Jet for purpose, Faye for her memories, Ed for a home, and himself… proof, or maybe reassurance.

Spike let himself only briefly travel down the path of "what if's." What if he had stayed with Faye and Jet? Would they have tried to find Ed and Ein? Would the five of them have continued to travel the cosmos searching for bounties?

A sharp pain shooting through his wound jerked Spike's thoughts back to the present as he inhaled with a sharp hiss, arm wrapping around his wound again in another feeble attempt to hold himself together. "There's nothing for it now," Spike stated matter-of-factly. "Don't wanna end up like that man in Jet's story thinking about the past right at the end, now do I?"

The end. Spike felt another loose, careless smile pull at his face as he turned away from the open, unseeing eyes of Vicious. "The end means only one thing," Spike thought to himself as he headed towards the elevator, footsteps echoing in the lifeless room. "Freedom."

Spike had set Vicious free, just as he promised he would, and now it was time for Vicious to live up to his word. "But not before I show those bastards waiting below that their leader is dead."

* * *

The ride down the elevator was long, but the walk to the top of the lobby staircase felt like a lifetime as his legs, barely able to hold their own, shook beneath the weight of his limp body. The blood was escaping his wound much faster by now. Spike was surprised he hadn't passed out on the ride down. His arm still gripping his gut, Spike stared down into the faces of the armed men; they all stood in silence, too frozen to even lift their guns. The shock of the realization of Vicious being defeated had left them completely unnerved. They watched as this tall, lanky, fuzzy haired man with his face looking towards the ground walked slowly and unevenly down the steps.

Every step brought white hot pain coursing through Spike's body. But he had to keep going, had to show them—needed to show them—that he was alive, that he had fought for his freedom.

As he continued to drag his feet, Spike reached a step not quite at the bottom, but low enough that they all could see him. As he reached this spot—this one particular step—Spike almost immediately decided that he wanted it to be his last. He wasn't sure why. Maybe because he had the freedom to choose now.

"_It's all a… a dream." _Those were Julia's last words as she gazed into his mismatched eyes; he was unsure if she was looking into his right, the real eye, or the left, the fake one. Was she looking towards the present, or the past? Maybe both… maybe they both are the same. Maybe it all is a dream.

"I don't wanna look back at the past anymore," Spike decided, a smile on his face. He closed his left eye, the one that never let him forget, and raised his head. He looked out on the scene in front of him with only his right eye, wanting only to see the reality he currently faced. Death.

Spike raised the arm not holding his wound and formed a gun with his pointer finger and thumb, aiming at nothing, and yet everything, before him.

"Bang."


	2. Running Rock

Chapter II: Running Rock

Running Rock. That's what that dried up sack of skin had called Jet. What kind of name was that anyways? What was it supposed to mean? Rocks didn't have feet. And if they did, they sure as hell wouldn't be able to get anywhere with that all that weight. Besides… what in the hell did a rock have that it needed to go running towards in the first place? It's just a rock. Just a stupid rock.

"Laughing Bull," Jet scoffed under his breath. "More like Laughing Idiot." Jet thought of another idiot he knew, one that was miles away trying to find his place in the world… Or to find out if he ever had a place. He was a stubborn lunkhead and he was going to get himself killed... if he wasn't dead already.

"Ah, whatever," Jet grumbled as he clenched his teeth in attempt to reel in the unnamed emotions that threatened to overtake him. "He's a big boy, he can take care of himself. It's not my place to tell him what to do." Jet was good at those things—making decisions, coordinating. He did those things without realizing he was doing it. It was just easier to take charge than to let others fall and get hurt because of one stupid mistake or unorganized plan. If you knew what to do, then you would know what not to do, and everything would be okay. Or at least, that's how it was supposed to work.

Jet found himself looking over his shoulder towards his discarded communicator for the third time in nearly ten minutes. It was resting on the holograph table which only moments ago was displaying a 3D image of a particular skyscraper in the city of Tharsis where that fuzzy haired idiot ought to have been by now.

Jet turned his attention back towards the rag in his hand and continued to wipe down the already clean window. Behind the transparent glass of the Bebop's bridge, the moon lit up the night sky and the crater that Jet had landed his damaged ship in. If Jet let himself look he'd be able to see the illuminating lights of Tharsis in the distance. But he didn't. He wouldn't. Instead, he focused his gaze on the stars.

That old Indian man had said that every living creature had a guardian star and that when that creature dies the star fades. Some guardian, Jet thought to himself. What kind of guardian would just stand back and watch as the thing that made up its entire existence died? Guardians are supposed to protect. Why would it just let their charge fade? Let itself fade? It seemed very irresponsible to Jet, and very cold.

Jet noticed then, out of the corner of his eye, a small flicker of light to the left. He paused, his hand still holding the rag to the glass. Jet felt his heart stop as he whipped his gaze towards the source of the disturbance. It was a star—A bright blue star that was separate from the others in its area. It stood alone, in its own constellation.

It flickered again. Jet tightened his jaw.

Then the star went back to how it was before, bright and aloof. Jet released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

Jet went to move his hand with the washcloth towards the section of the glass that separated him from the distant sky and kept him from strangling whoever decided to have a near-death-experience at that exact moment. He wanted no smudges on the windows. Not tonight. Tonight he needed a clear view so that, if the stars did anything, it wasn't just his eyes playing tricks on him because of all the cigarette smoke that clung to the glass. For a second, Jet considered making the bridge a smoke-free zone, but decided against it.

As Jet went to step to the side to reach the glass, he a felt a searing pain shoot through his left leg.

"Damn!" Jet growled as he laid the hand with the rag flat against the window to support his weight; his other hand grasped the handle of the crutch in an attempt to remain upright. Stupid damn leg, Jet thought as he bowed his head, his eyes drawn shut. Stupid damn Syndicate! If it wasn't for their god damned goons shooting up that bar his leg wouldn't have a gaping hole in it. Then, maybe, Jet would have been able to go with the fuzz head, or at least follow him to make sure he didn't do anything crazy.

"Maybe it's better this way…" Jet mumbled. He looked up then, gazing at his reflection in the window. He let his eyes wander over the beat up body of the man that stared back at him. Jet took note of the white lines of past wounds that scarred his face and outstretched arm; the deep, purple bruises that dropped below his tired eyes and never seemed to fade away no matter how much sleep get got; the way he held himself in order to relieve some of the ache that settled deep in his bones when he moved. Finally, Jet looked at the mechanical arm that gripped the crutch, the only thing keeping him from meeting the cold metal floor.

"Just like the Bebop," Jet thought to himself with a small grin. "Beat to all hell, but still going strong."

Jet wondered briefly what his own star looked like, and where it was at, and if it was anywhere near _his_. Hell, for that matter he wondered about the girls' stars—he even thought about that damned data dog's star.

Jet was surprised at the sudden twinge of sorrow that flooded his being. It came fast, hard, and unrelenting, threatening to take the very air from his lungs. They were gone, both Ed and that stupid dog, Ein. He remembered that ridiculously large message that Ed had left on the deck of the Bebop the day she left. Just the word "Bye-Bye" next to one of her signature smiley faces. For a second he almost regretted scrubbing the message off, but then he remembered her pinwheel that was taped (and excessively so) to the very tip of the bow of the Bebop. Jet had left it there for some reason that he still didn't understand.

Faye had left that day too.

He had set four plates out for dinner that night, but only two were there to eat: himself and the lunkhead. Jet had eaten so many hardboiled eggs, angrily shoving one after the other in his mouth, that he wasn't sure he could look at another egg without feeling sick ever again.

But Faye had come back, even if it was only to relay a message to the fuzzy haired guy. Jet wasn't sure how long she was going to stay. She was still searching for something that he couldn't figure out. Maybe she was still here to get one more free meal out of him.

Thinking about his nearly empty ship, Jet felt… sad? Lonely? He wasn't really sure what he was feeling. All he knew for sure was that his crew was nearly gone and he didn't like it. Not at all.

Jet straightened himself up then, squaring his shoulders and drawing in a deep breath. He looked over his shoulder again, eyes roaming over the empty bridge trying to remember what it was like when it was only him and his ship—no women, no children, no animals, and no reckless idiots. He caught himself glancing at the communicator again.

Jet lowered his hand from the window, clenching the rag in his hand until his knuckles turned white.

It turns out they all had been looking for something. Maybe they were looking for proof of their existence, like the man in that story he had told the lunkhead. Or, maybe they were looking for a place where they belonged, after all, they were all drifters with no attachments. They went out of people's lives as carelessly as they had entered them.

He looked towards the stars again, scanning the sky for any disturbances. In his search, Jet came across a group of stars that seemed to huddle together away from all the others. They were the brightest ones in the sky that night. Ironically there were five of them.

In looking at those stars, Jet realized why he was feeling like the world was being ripped from beneath him; why he looked at that pinwheel and secretly wished it would guide Ed back; why thinking of the killer repair job ahead of him for the Redtail made him feel at ease; and why, after fixing the Bebop, he hadn't taken off from Mars in search of another bounty.

They belonged on the Bebop, they all did. They all belonged in that they didn't belong anywhere. Now that they were gone—or most of them, at least—the ship didn't feel right. Jet realized that the ship he had come to call home for a number of years he could no longer remember now felt like a strange place to him without his crew there.

They were gone, and now Jet felt the realization sink in that he didn't belong anywhere anymore.

If they never came back, then he would have no one to cook bell peppers and beef (minus the beef) for, no one to complain about the broken shower head and lack of hot water, no one to argue with about damaged ships and whose turn it was to have the couch, no one to bum a cigarette off of, and no one to back him up in a bounty chase.

Jet worried briefly if he had been too overbearing, like he had been with Elisa. He had taken so much for granted, with her and with his crew.

Either way, it was too late. Like his father used to say, once a ship sets sail it either keeps sailing or sinks. Jet wasn't about to let himself sink. He wasn't going to let them sink him.

"Then again," Jet mused, "a rock sinks itself."

Running Rock… What was he running towards? Or was he running away from something? Either way, Jet knew he wasn't getting anywhere. He would always be running, always searching for something that he didn't know. Elisa had told him the last time he saw her on Ganymede that he treated time like it stood still, like it waited for something or someone to kick start it. But she had been wrong. It wasn't time that stood still in Jet's world, it was himself. The Running Rock, getting nowhere fast. Just like that broken watch resting at the bottom of the Ganymede Sea.

Jet found himself hoping beyond hope that, if he stood still long enough, just maybe his team would come back and it would be as if they had never left. Everything would go back to the way it was before.

Just then, Jet noticed one of the stars among the Bebop constellation flickering. But this time it didn't stop. It wavered in its radiance until, eventually, its light grew dimmer and dimmer. And suddenly, the star was gone.

Jet felt the air in his lungs come to a halt and his grip on the rag faltered until he felt it slip from between his fingers. He blinked in rapid succession, trying to clear his vision. He looked at the spot where the star had been, trying to see if maybe a cloud had hidden it from his sight. Spotting no clouds, Jet began frantically scanning the rest of the sky for a similar star. He thought maybe it had moved, or maybe he had made it up and there was never a star there to begin with. But, somehow, Jet knew this to be false. A star had been there and now it wasn't, and he knew whose it was… or whose it had been.

From behind him, Jet heard the door to the bridge open followed by the sound of heels against metal.

"Jet, we need to talk," he heard Faye say in that all too familiar demanding tone that sported a hint of arrogance.

"It went out…" was all Jet could manage to get past his lips as he continued to look at the spot the once bright star had inhabited.

"Hm? What did? What are you talking about?" Faye questioned, her eyebrow raised and her hands resting on her hips—her posture radiated impatience and determination.

"_His_ star… it went out."

The room grew eerily quiet. Moments later, Jet felt the presence of another standing beside him. Together, they looked towards the sky. Jet wasn't sure how long they stood there that night.


End file.
